Researching Widening Access To Lifelong Learning

This authoritative volume is a truly international contribution to the worldwide debate on how best to widen access to lifelong learning. The first section of the book comprises research studies from around the world, reflecting the diversity of contexts in which widening access is researched and considers issues central to the access debate, including different understandings of the concept of access, organisational and structural change, curriculum development, entry policies, performance and retention and labour market outcomes. The second section illustrates diverse and innovative methodological approaches that have been employed by researchers in the field, and considers the range of approaches available. Given the growing concern around the world on the need to combat social exclusion and to improve economic circumstances through access to lifelong learning, this book acts as a unique reference point informing the ongoing debate, exploring the relationships between research, policy and practice.

This authoritative volume is a truly international contribution to the worldwide debate on how best to widen access to lifelong learning. The first section of the book comprises research studies from around the world, reflecting the diversity of contexts in which widening access is researched and considers issues central to the access debate, including different understandings of the concept of access, organisational and structural change, curriculum development, entry policies, performance and retention and labour market outcomes. The second section illustrates diverse and innovative methodological approaches that have been employed by researchers in the field, and considers the range of approaches available. Given the growing concern around the world on the need to combat social exclusion and to improve economic circumstances through access to lifelong learning, this book acts as a unique reference point informing the ongoing debate, exploring the relationships between research, policy and practice.

"Equality and social justice were the prime objectives of the first access courses. But the government's current lifelong learning policy has shifted the position of access students in ways that often impede their educational opportunities." "This research study draws on the views and experience of academics, access practitioners and, above all, access students themselves. Their accounts reveal how access as currently provided within the dominant discourse can intimidate the students it is meant to serve, reinforcing exclusion and poverty and reproducing unequal power relations." "Dr Burke and her access students show how a collaboratively developed pedagogy for access courses, committed to anti-classist, anti-sexist and antiracist approaches to teaching and learning, would empower students to succeed."--BOOK JACKET.

Researching Transitions in Lifelong Learning presents new research from Britain, Australia and North America. The authors include leading scholars with established international reputations - such as Kathryn Ecclestone, Norton Grubb, David Boud and Gert Biesta - as well as emerging researchers with fresh and sometimes challenging perspectives.

This textbook gives a wide-ranging, research-informed introduction to issues in lifelong learning across a variety of educational settings and practices. Its very accessible approach is multi-disciplinary drawing on sociology and psychology in particular. In addition, issues are discussed within an international context. While there has been a proliferation of texts focussing on particular areas of practice such as higher education, there is little in the way of a broad overview. Chapters one to four introduce various conceptions of lifelong learning, the factors that impinge on learning through the life course, and the social and the economic rationale for lifelong learning. Chapters five-ten consider the varied sites of lifelong learning, from the micro to macro (from the home to the region to the virtual). Chapter eleven draws the strands together in the context of turbulence and continuing transition in personal and work roles, and against the background of future technological development. This timely overview will be relevant to education and training professionals, education studies students and the general reader.

Drawing on the role of individuals, education and training providers and countries' social policy actions, and borrowing insights from psychology, sociology and economics, this book works towards an interdisciplinary theory of adult lifelong learning participation. It explores the fragmented evidence of why adults do or do not participate in adult lifelong learning activities and focuses on the relevance of policy, the social character and expected benefits of lifelong learning participation and discusses the potential implications for policy, practice and research.

'Lifelong Learning' is a hot issue for educators across the world, as societies everywhere are concerned with developing a literate, skilled and flexible workforce and to widen participation in education at all levels and for all age-groups. This book covers all the major issues, with well-known academic contributors working in the field and covering the topics of theoretical, global and curriculum perspectives, widening participation and the industrial university. Topics covered include: * Community education * Popular education * Higher education * The corporate university * The school curriculum * Vocational studies. With contributors from China, Africa, USA, Canada, UK and other European countries, Lifelong Learning offers a comprehensive and challenging account of issues arising from varying lifelong learning decisions, and exposes the impact these decisions have on such a large majority of the population.